Self-organisation and characterisation of hierarchical structures in trimethyl β-cyclodextrin nano-films

Abstract

Despite the numerous materials that have been developed, controlling the self-organisation and detailed characterisation of hierarchical nanostructures composed of various functional molecular units remains a challenging task. Herein, we report a facile approach for creating flat nanosheets and helical nanofibres for ultrathin films (ca. 12 nm) and thin films (ca. 120 nm), respectively. These films contain a member of the cyclodextrin family, trimethyl b-cyclodextrin (TMCD), and form via self-organisation with heating (thermal annealing) in the absence of both polymeric components and organic solvent. X-ray reflectivity (XRR) and grazing-incident-angle X-ray diffraction (GIXD) readily explain the characteristic molecular assembling behaviour in the thin films, such as the highly perpendicularly ordered polycrystalline structure of the nanosheet crystal films and the dewetting behaviour for the fabrication of bundled nanofibres. In addition to X-ray analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic-force microscopy (AFM) imaging reveals that the obtained nanofibres are well rounded and partially double or triple-helical coiled, with highly frustrated characteristics. The surface homogeneity prior to the thermal annealing was found to be crucial to determine the creation of the helical nanofibre structure. Also, the results suggest the importance of the absence of solvent vapour for the creation of the helical nanofibres. Thus, this report proposes a facile self-organisation process for creating polymer-free cyclodextrin-based nanostructures that should have wide applications. It also shows the effectiveness of X-ray analyses combined with several surfacesensitive X-ray techniques and microscopy observations.

Carbon Nanolights in Piezopolymers are Self‐Organizing Toward Color Tunable Luminous Hybrids for Kinetic Energy Harvesting

“…As self‐organization processes play a key role in the efficient production of highly ordered functional systems, they have been massively explored concerning the organic, inorganic, and organic–inorganic hybrid entities with molecular‐ and mesoscale periodicities . Among these, the self‐organizations of inorganics in polymers are of particular interest, which could lead to the construction of previously unknown functional materials with elaborate hybridized structures .…”

Microscopic Screening of Cyclodextrin Channel Blockers by DiffusiOptoPhysiology

“…WT α-HL is the PFT of Staphylococcus aureus, a major bacterial human pathogen that can cause a wide variety of clinical manifestations . Cyclodextrins, which can bind to the internal lumen of α-HL, are inhibitors of α-HL. , β-CD (Figure c), DM-β-CD (Figure d), and TM-β-CD (Figure e) are three common types of cyclodextrins, with only slight differences on each glucose unit. − To demonstrate the feasibility of DOP to screen different channel blockers, WT α-HL was applied as the model PFT. DM-β-CD (Figure d) and TM-β-CD (Figure e) were applied as the model channel blockers.…”

Thermal Behavior of Anhydrous Ascorbic Acid 6‐Palmitate with Trace of Decomposition

“…In addition, in this study, the AsP phase behavior was effectively investigated using the 2D-WAXD and aligning films, whereas obtaining accurate information from the conventional PXRD was difficult. While the fascinating morphology was occasionally obtained by the selforganization of amphiphilic compounds in nanofilms, [33] the significance of using self-organized Cr or LC films to identify the powder Cr structure and its phase behavior was clearly described.…”